CLIMATE CHANGE: Controversy Sails with the Polarstern

The prestigious German oceanography ship Polarstern is conducting a major experiment of seeding the oceans with iron in order to absorb carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse-effect gas.

CLIMATE CHANGE: New Thinking to Tackle Old Problems

Organic and eco-friendly farming can feed the world, contrary to the common belief that biotechnology and chemical-intensive farming are indispensable, modern strategies to increase production, agricultural experts say.

ENVIRONMENT-PAKISTAN: Warnings From Vanishing Vultures

"The thought of my carcass being pecked at by vultures isn’t at all pleasant," said Bapsi Sidhwa, a leading Pakistani diasporic writer now living in the United States. She was referring to the ancient Parsi funerary rite of 'sky burial'.

BIODIVERSITY: Frigid Polar Regions Teeming With Life

Earth's two ice-covered polar oceans may be the most inhospitable places on the planet, but more than 12,000 species of animals have been found there, according to new research released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science here.

HEALTH: Warmer Climate Gives Malaria New Hunting Grounds

Climate change is bringing malaria to regions of Africa where the disease was previously unknown, researchers report from the conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago this week.

ENVIRONMENT-AUSTRALIA: Bushfires Highlight Global Warming Danger

While the bushfires which ravaged parts of the state of Victoria earlier this month - the most devastating in the nation’s history - are not being blamed directly on the effects of climate change, it is clear that global warming was indeed a factor.

HEALTH-UGANDA: Pads From Papyrus

The average income in the Kyenjojo district in western Uganda is less than a dollar a day. Spending twice that on a single sanitary pad is an unaffordable luxury for most women.

TECHNOLOGY: Fab Labs Channel Your Inner Scientist

Inside the confines of a modest 275-square-metre office space in this southern California city, the human imagination is running wild.

HEALTH-BRAZIL: Older Women at Higher Risk from AIDS

The HIV infection rate in women over 50 in Brazil has more than tripled since 1996, making this population group the prime target of the government's HIV/AIDS prevention campaign during the carnival festivities.

SOUTH AMERICA: Tenacious Drought Puzzles Climate Experts

For months now, yellowed pastures, cracked soil and dead livestock have been the landscape of what otherwise are the most productive farming areas of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Scientists say it is so far impossible to determine if the drought is a manifestation of climate change processes.

PAKISTAN: Opening the A. Q. Khan Can of Worms

The release of Pakistani rogue nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, underlines major issues confronting Pakistan -and indeed the world - ranging from nuclear proliferation to governance, corruption, hypocrisy, and how public opinion is shaped by falsehoods.

CLIMATE CHANGE: New Findings Show Antarctic Warming

Although Antarctica has hitherto been believed to be the only continent to buck the global trend of warming, new findings by United States-based scientists indicate that the coldest continent is indeed hotting up in a similar way to the rest of the world.

UAE/US: ‘Civilian Nuclear Deal Hint to Iran’

The civilian nuclear deal between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States may fulfill the former's long-term desire to develop alternative energy sources and the latter's intention to promote a model for peaceful nuclear energy that sends a hint to Iran.

CLIMATE CHANGE: North American Trees Dying Twice as Fast

Our trees are dying. Throughout the western United States, cherished and protected forests are dying twice as fast as they did 20 years ago because of climate change, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science.

HEALTH-AUSTRALIA: Fighting Dengue With Bacterial Ally

Australian scientists appear to have made a potentially major breakthrough in the battle to combat dengue fever, the mosquito-borne infection which leads to more than 20,000 fatalities worldwide each year.

POLITICS-US: Scientists Hail Return to Fact-Based Policies

Key appointments announced by President-elect Barack Obama suggest that science will soon make a major comeback in the U.S. government.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Indian Scientists Competent But Still at Sea

The prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc), set up here in May 1909, is celebrating its centenary with year-long lectures and seminars, some of which have revealed Indian science’s lack of coherence in dealing with climate change in India.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Another Record Year for Heat, Storms

A new U.N. study on climate change reveals that 2008 was one of the warmest years since 1850 when scientists started to keep weather records.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Chasm Widens Between Science and Policy

The roof of our house is on fire while the leaders of our family sit comfortably in the living room below preoccupied with "political realities" - that was essentially the message from 1,000 scientists from around the world along with northern indigenous leaders gathered in Quebec City for the International Arctic Change conference that concluded last weekend.

CLIMATE CHANGE: “Things Happen Much Faster in the Arctic”

In just a few summers from now, the Arctic Ocean will lose its protective cover of ice for the first time in a million years, according to some experts attending the International Arctic Change conference here.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Arctic Is the Canary in the Coalmine

Nearly 1,000 scientists and representatives of indigenous peoples from 16 countries have braved a major winter storm to share their findings and concerns about the rapidly warming Arctic region at the International Arctic Change conference in Quebec City.